1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a transflective liquid crystal device that has a retardation film inside a liquid crystal panel, to a method of manufacturing the same, and to an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
As a transflective liquid crystal device, there is known a retardation film-equipped liquid crystal device that has a retardation film on an inner surface of a liquid crystal panel. A retardation film is selective provided in a reflective display region, thereby realizing appropriate reflective display and transmissive display. In such a liquid crystal device, since a λ/4 phase plate does not need to be provided outside a liquid crystal panel. Therefore, it is possible to contribute to reduction in thickness and low cost of a liquid crystal device (for example, see JP-A-2005-338256).
However, when the retardation film is provided on the inner surface of the liquid crystal panel, it is necessary to optimize the cell thickness in consideration of the thickness of the retardation film. A transflective liquid crystal device uses a multi-gap structure, in which the thickness of a liquid crystal layer in a reflective display region is different from the thickness of a liquid crystal layer in a transmissive display region. The retardation (phase difference) of the retardation film is determined by the birefringence Δn of a material and the thickness d of the retardation film. Accordingly, if the retardation And is changed, the thickness d is changed, and thus the multi-gap structure is limited by the thickness d. In this case, the manufacturing process needs to be significantly changed, and there is a risk that display quality is degraded.
The retardation film may be used as a liquid-crystal-layer-thickness adjusting layer (multi-gap structure) that makes the thickness of the liquid crystal layer in the reflective display region and the transmissive display region different. In this case, since the thickness of the retardation film is approximately several μm, when the retardation film is formed by a single coating process, the thickness of the retardation film may not be made uniform. In addition, the retardation film is formed by aligning a liquid crystal material, which is formed on an alignment film, in a predetermined direction during curing. Accordingly, if the thickness of the retardation film becomes larger, the liquid crystal molecules distant from the alignment film may be less sufficiently aligned, and thus precise optical design may not be achieved.